THE DEFICIT

You know that thing in the title? That odious, mysterious, omnipresent thing that we're supposed to hide the kids from? That giant economic monolith that we've been told won't go away until the nice men in the suits hack at it with giant axes? Well...

Britain's budget deficit came in lower than feared last month, the latest indication that the public finances are over the worst of the financial crisis.

The government borrowed £16bn in May, below last year's £17.4bn and less than the £18bn expected by City economists.

Encouraging stuff, right? Well...

"The big picture of course is that borrowing remains extremely high and additional measures to reduce the deficit will be required in next week's budget," said Vicky Redwood at Capital Economics. "Indeed, the government appears keen to act sooner rather than later, yesterday announcing additional spending cuts from the cancellation of pending projects. We expect tax rises and spending cuts adding up to perhaps £20bn per annum to be announced next Tuesday."

Marc Oswald of Monument Securities said the picture painted by May's data "to a certain extent looks rather better" than the OBR had assumed. However, analysts do not believe it will deter Osborne from announcing hefty cuts next week.'

No one should be surprised by this - so far, so Tory. Curious, though, that Osbourne and his coalition partners have proposed some measures which might be considered quite foolish when attempting to deal with THE DEFICIT. Measures such as cutting corporation tax, at a time when we are told that the cuts 'will effect all of us,' recognising marriage in the tax system and convering the employers' contributions to National Insurance payments.

What's interesting is how the deficit hawks have monopolised the narrative, not only in this country but throughout Europe as well. Germany, Spain and Ireland have all embarked to some degree on manic budget cuts. Jose Barroso championed Cameron & Co.s austerity programme as, 'exactly the right medicine". All of this in order to appease the markets. The markets were the reason we got in this mess in the first place, in the form of the banks. The markets are a wild, irrational animal out for blood and self-preservation - considering every economic crises that has preceded it, what sane individual would listen to it now? But getting back to the original point - alternatives to a programme of cuts are not even allowed into the public discourse, being largely the refrain of those on the political fringe. The idea that maybe there needs to be state subsidised growth is complete poison nowadays - partly as a result of the hangover from neoliberalism, partly as a long running enmity toward public sector services on behalf of the Tories. They did as much damage as they could in the 1980s - they're now back to finish the job.

The false dichotomy of public vs. private is shown up to be a crock - cuts in the public sector will negatively impact the private sector as well - but don't just take my word for it, see what this notoriously pro-Lefty organisation has to say:

'Britain's leading employers' organisation warned today that the economy's sluggish recovery from its deepest and longest post-war recession will see unemployment rise and consumer spending squeezed. In its quarterly health check, the CBI said that a temporary pick-up in the pace of growth this spring would fade as cuts in public spending start to bite.'

When even the CBI is looking a bit nervous about the size of the cuts on the table, you know something is very, very wrong.